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January 04, 2013

Looking back at 2012

I'm a little late this year with my retrospective, but today is the last day before the start of the spring semester, so it's a great day to reflect on the past year and think about what's ahead for 2013.

OMG 2012!
2012 was a huge year for me! Obviously, the biggest impact on my life was the birth of our son, Elmer. He's been a wonderful addition to my life, a constant source of joy, and he teaches me something new every day. Having a child challenges me to grow, to learn, and to expand my boundaries - learning to be a mother has changed me in a more fundamental way than any other event in my life. I've loved every minute of it!

I came back from maternity leave to the news that I was granted continuing appointment (our equivalent to tenure) and promote to Associate Librarian! It was also the end of the spring semester, so I spent the summer learning how to balance work and motherhood, and then jumped into the fall semester. It's all so much a blur, it's hard to say what I accomplished this year. But I gave a couple of presentations at the AzLA Conference in November that were well-received. I'm still doing licensing for the ASU Libraries. We rolled out the ASU Digital Repository in a more public way, and have started our push to add content. I started doing some workshops on fair use and copyright for authors which will hopefully have more play in the year ahead. Oh, and I became the gaming librarian, but I'm still working out what that means.

I didn't set many goals for myself this past year, but the biggest one was adjusting to having a child, and I think I've done that one pretty well. I thought learning to make Hollandaise sauce would be harder than it was - I made two attempts and they both turned out just fine. I feel I could whip up a Hollandaise sauce any time I want to, so I'm checking that goal off the list. I also wanted to work on my relationships with the people I care about. Annnndd...I'm still working on that one. It's been harder than I anticipated, since I wasn't good at contacting people even when I didn't have a small person demanding most of my attention. But some steps have been taken - I'm trying to just call people when I want to talk, or sending them an email. So I feel that some progress is being made.

Here Comes 2013!
Professionally, the next year brings much of the same. I'm optimistic that there seems to be more interest in open access issues among my colleagues and at the university in general, and I hope to spend some more time talking to people about it. I submitted a proposal about harvesting content for the repository that would be a big project for me for several months if it's accepted. I have my usual batch of committees to deal with and a couple of events to plan. I haven't planned on attending any conferences at this point, but maybe I'll finally make it to the Games, Learning & Society Conference in June since it's now actually relevant to one aspect of my position. I'll also have to define what exactly it means for me to be the gaming librarian, and that should probably be high on the priority list for the next month.

I've finally given up on trying to use a digital to-do manager. I've tried Remember the Milk, ToDoist, and several others, and none of them really help me get anything done. So I'm reverting to analog, and just set up a Hipster PDA to see if I like that system better.

Resolutions
My biggest resolution this year is to take better care of myself. Now that I've gotten used to having a baby, it's time to bring some of the other things that matter to me back into my life. I'm working in some exercise (100 pushups again, among other things), trying to bring back some better eating habits (I got so used to eating for two!), and getting back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I also want to read more books - I've been a bit bogged down by participating in two book clubs, so I haven't made much of a dent in my own to-read list. I miss reading things I want to read! Finally, I'm playing my guitar again after a year's hiatus. All these things remind me that I can be Anali as well as Elmer's mama, and that's important.

Just for fun, I'll be doing a year in pictures again - with my phone and Flickr's improved app, there's just no excuse for not posting. I didn't decide to do it until yesterday, so I missed the first 2 days of the year, but here we go!

1 comment:

Great stuff! I'm glad you are getting to focus on being Anali and not just a mom - I think I fail in that regard sometimes, at least everywhere but at work (where I can't be anyone's mom!). I'm anxious to see what the 'gaming librarian' does. Congrats again on your continuing appointment (job security, yay!). You're also doing a great job posting photos and updates about Elmer, too, which are wonderful to read.